Early projections have storm reaching hurricane status before landfall

Wednesday

Oct 4, 2017 at 3:49 PMOct 9, 2017 at 11:45 AM

JOHN HENDERSON News Herald Reporter @PCNHJohn

WEST BAY — As Tropical Depression 16 steamed toward the gulf Wednesday, threatening to become Tropical Storm Nate and on a path that could bring it to our area as a hurricane Sunday, Bay County officials and State Rep. Jay Trumbull met to discuss hurricane preparedness in general at a pre-arranged meeting.

While the meeting was set before the depression formed, a screen on the wall of the county’s Emergency Operations Center on Wednesday showed the reality of why they want people to be prepared. The projected path of TD 16, in the southwestern Caribbean Wednesday, has it passing over Bay County on Sunday night shortly after strengthening into a Category 1 hurricane. A tropical storm packs winds between 39 and 73 mph; a Category 1 hurricane would have winds between 74 and 95 mph.

Gov. Rick Scott will be in the county Thursday to talk about storm preparedness and give an update. He will also stop in Escambia county.

“Right now at this point it’s really too early to say (the storm's impact),” said Joby Smith, emergency management division chief at Bay County Emergency Services. “We know Sunday we’ll have some kind of impact and it really just depends on the trajectory that it goes.”

TD 16 started as a mass of thunderstorms and gradually became better organized to be named the 16th tropical depression of the Atlantic hurricane season Wednesday morning by the National Hurricane Center. Officials expect the depression is likely to become the season’s 14th named storm, called Nate.

The depression could strengthen substantially over the coming days and make landfall along the U.S. Gulf Coast between Louisiana and Florida’s west coast late Sunday as a hurricane.

But Smith said a lot can happen with the system between now and this weekend.

“At this point in time, we’re just simply monitoring and taking everything that the Weather Service provides to us,” he said. “And hopefully we’re looking at the maximum of maybe of a small Category 1 storm. But they are always looking at that as the worst case scenario when it comes to those estimations.”

Nonetheless, he said people should make sure their hurricane preparedness kit is ready and people should get on alertbay.org to be updated about how the system might be impacting their neighborhood.

“Until it gets out into the gulf, there is not really anything we are going to know until it starts to develop further in the next few days," he said. "But we’re definitely closely monitoring this situation.”

County officials offered ideas to Trumbull about what the state might do to help the county prepare and respond to a storm, discussing topics such as evacuation, mitigating future storm damage, medical facilities, medical care, shelters, utilities, school closures, reconstruction and tax relief.

Trumbull has been named a member of a select committee in the legislature that is addressing hurricane preparedness, though the ideas discussed Wednesday wouldn't be implemented for this storm should its projected path remain unchanged.

Officials said the biggest problem they encountered during Irma was informing the public whether the county’s bridges would be closed. The DOT informed the county that the Hathaway Bridge would close with sustained winds of 40 miles per hour. EMS Director Mark Bowen suggested that the DOT based its recommendations based on the structural integrity of a bridge instead of a blanket policy for all bridges.

Trumbull said afterwards that the meeting was productive. “This was just a fact-finding mission for me to be able to take back to Tallahassee as we go through this process on our committee,” he said.

Trumbull said he will study the bridge closure issue further. “Setting a set standard of what mile per hour sustained winds need to be before we start shutting down bridges,” Trumbull said. “I (also) want to look at is there a need to shut down all state schools at once, or is it better to tie the closures based on where the storm is going to hit.”

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